Lately, I’ve been transfixed by a transmission I have no desire to stop listening to. Crucially, listening, I have no desire, because every desire my heart ever had is expressed far clearer than I ever felt it in what I’m hearing. There’s something about the music on Radio Golha that makes it perhaps the most violent assault on your ongoing desensitisation to sound, a reconfiguring of your most ingrained listening habits, and a factory-default reset of your expectations when you retune to Radio Realworld, like a fallen angel, a wiped-away tear. In an age where every radio station is trying to exceed its own expectations/ RAJAR predictions, Radio Golha is, by intent and necessity, entirely limited in output. It has 200 hours of programming that it broadcasts in rotation. Those 200 hours are a mere fraction of 1500 hour-long programmes recorded …

"Enoch was right"
Even a stopped clock etc.
This is all good but skip to 37 minutes.

Was I really so foolish to expect this kind of standard of debate in the hastily called EU Referendum? Perhaps so, but perhaps I was just foolish for watching this clip in the first place, especially way back in January, when I was (seems insane to recall such daffy hope) actually looking forward to the referendum campaign, not knowing then exactly how cretinous and contemptuous the campaign would get, thinking it might be bad for the Tories when in actual fact it's been bad for both parties (or rather all 4 parties i.e the two Tory and two Labour parties we have now), and us as the electorate. Politicians would be better judged by actions than rhetoric but when did rhetoric get soooo dumb? It's been a nigh-on 40 year process now & I'd say the biggest moves towards the current glossolalia of guff our great and good generate began in the 80s when Thatcher's govt and Mu…

In your capacity as a music critic, you are known for your intolerance of reviews you see as 'boring'. What's your criteria for boring or engaging?
“Well, that doesn’t come from any ‘capacity as a music critic’ at all; it comes from being a reader and a listener first and foremost. When I wrote that blog about the NME I was totally shocked, (as I’m always genuinely surprised that anyone, particularly successful writers, give a toss what this old knacker writes) by people’s shock – this idea that critics shouldn’t criticize other’s writing but that was exactly how I started out in this malarkey, writing to the music press to criticize them. I’m still really just another powerless reader. As a reader & listener you develop a taste for writers as you do for music. Simply put - I like writers who feel like friends, who give you a laugh. Writing that makes you feel better in some way…

1. NUMBERS ON THE BOARD by PUSHA T
2. I CAN ONLY GIVE YOU EVERYTHING by THEM
3. JAWBONE & THE AIR-RIFLE by THE FALL
4. RED HOT by CAPPO FT. NAPPA
5. LIKE THE INNOCENT PT. 2 by THE BESNARD LAKES
6. NAVIGATE by AKKORD
7. IN THE MOUTH A DESERT by PAVEMENT
8. ONE PIECE by COME
9. EVEN STEVENS by BLUDD RELATIONS
10. ARE WE THERE YET? by DREAM WARRIORS
11. I JUST WANT SOME SKANK by CIRCLE JERKS
12. ALO MI ALO (PART 1 & 2) by ORLANDO JULIUS & THE AFRO SOUNDERS
13. DISINTEGRATION by CERN
14. PASSIN' ME BY by PHARCYDE
15. AGILOK & BLUBBO by CAN
16. SAME OLD GAME by CHICO MANN
17. GROWN SO UGLY by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND

Sometimes, like a retired bricklayer peering through a wire-mesh porthole in the temporary wall around a construction site, I peer back at the world I used to work in, mainstream music journalism, just to see how it's getting along. I nearly always regret that glance but perhaps this piece, more than any other, widened my eyes with the realisation that the people who populate that world now, are not my kind, are not my type, are a different new breed. The sound of an inexhaustible entitlement, a braying, whiney, superficially-lol but utterly humourless in the soul voice, a voice that I hear when I go out, and the major reason beyond sheer poverty that I stay in.

The sleeves have been a dead giveaway haven't they? As have the shots of the reconvened lads. The thought that John Squire looks at the sleeves of the two comeback singles thus far and is happy is quite staggering really. The sleeves look like they were knocked up in about 20 minutes in MSPaint by a particularly bored intern. As such they summate the laziness, cynicism and cheapskate bankraidness of the Roses 'comeback' perfectly. The equally revealing new shots of the Roses show middle aged men having a laugh. Nowt wrong with that but if the modus operandi of making new music was simply to say bye to the wives and kids, tool along to a studio, smoke shitloads of weed and jam . . . well, I could say that's not going to work anymore but clearly it will work for them, as there's so many dewy-eyed nostalgic pricks out there willing to waive any old shit they churn out through, giving it a pass cos it's by these 'legends'. The fans know this. The Stone Ros…

BISHOP NEHRUMagic 19Bishop Nehru - Magic 19
cos it's great and already picking up comments about it being old fashioned from young idiots CATS OF TRANSNISTRIA Divine &lt;a href="http://catsoftransnistria.bandcamp.com/album/divine"&gt;Divine by Cats Of Transnistria&lt;/a&gt; because last year's 'Away' EP was sublime and this is almost as gorgeous - Tarnation vocals meets Windy & Carl sonics = pleasure centres caressed deeply.

CURREN$YBourbon St. SecretsCurren$y - Bourbon Street Secrets (Prod. By Purps)
cos the seemingly-endless series of projects Curren$y has bought out this year have been his most sublimely consistent set of aceness since he first emerged (make sure you get 'Carrolton' and 'Weed Instrumentals' as well).

(written in 2011, suffice to say things've got no better since, quite the reverse in fact)

Hey. Wake up. You fell asleep. I’ve been for a walk, down the hill, up the hill, through the entry, past the old school and home again. S’the same walk I took an hour after my dad died, trying to clear my head, finding a daze I’ve tried to stay in since, worried of what horrors lie in self-realisation. Tonight, on balance, has not been good for me. Dawn will be here soon. My friend came whilst you were out, popped in, he’s gone now. He recommended a note by way of explanation. Read it back to me.